Ludwig guided the Roush team to a strong GTO lead before having to leave immediately after the completion of his last ride at 2 p.m. to catch a flight to Germany to bring his family to Daytona Beach for the IROC race on Feb. 14. He left assuming the victory was secure, but the car's transmission began to fail, and the four-lap lead was lost on a 22-minute pit stop in the last hour of the race.

''We gave it a good shot,'' said Jenner, 1976 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon. ''What can you say? We dominated for 23 1/2 hours, and it's a 24- hour race. It was fun. We did our best.

''Sometimes you can't help having a mechanical failure. It was a bad bit of luck. We have the whole season ahead of us. We got second here. I'm sure we'll be on top a few times before it's over,'' said Jenner, who is committed to 15 GTO races.

Frank Rubino, Ray Mummery and John Schneider, driving a Mazda Argo, overcame their share of problems to take the Camel Lights title and seventh place overall.

''Our worst problem was when a wheel nut froze, and we had to cut it off. We also lost second gear last night, and other than a minor pit fire, things were smooth,'' Rubino said.

''When you win right out of the box like we did last year, everyone says what are you going to do for an encore. Dennis said we'll win again this year, and we did,'' Johnson said.

The early success of the team of NASCAR notables Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, Kyle Petty and Ken Schrader was short-lived. The team was cruising along at seventh overall and second in the GTOs when an encounter with the wall abruptly ended the race for them at 12:30 a.m.

Rudd was driving when a car spun out in front of him, sending him into the wall just past the chicane.

''I probably should have backed off a little, but I didn't know what the other car was going to do,'' Rudd said. ''We gave it a good shot here. The car was running real well up to this point. I think we would have been right up front had we lasted the night. I definitely want to do more of this racing this year.''